All of the Selmer altos that I've ever owned:
Modele 26 4,8xx....sold
Balanced Action 23,xxx....still mine
mk6 58,xxx gold plated....still mine
mk6 210,xxx bought new in '73, sold in '75
mk6 226,xxx bought new in '75, sold in '03
serie II 382,xxx bought new in '87, sold in '96
ref54 really high serial # I can't read stuff that small anymore bought new in '03....still mine
The modele 26 was a loaner that I was transporting back to the repair guy, I was working with the repair guy in a few days, and the guy he loaned it out to gave it to me to give back at the upcoming gig. So in the few days that I had the horn, I played on it and liked it. So the repair guy sold it to me for a very cheap price. It didn't have a front high f key on it. So I messed around on the horn for about a year, used it as a backup for my 226 mk6. A guy saw the horn and offered me a lot more than I paid for it, so I sent it to it's new home. It had great intonation, and a great speaking voice. But it was very old, and I believed that it was haunted. I would be playing a tune, "Tune Up," or "Four," or something, improvising on the changes, and all of a sudden I would be playing like "Valdres March", or some kind of military type sounding tune. Just like the horn took over or something. So this would weird me out a bit, and I figured a previous owner was haunting the horn. So it was a little scary to me. So I sold it.
The BA is beautiful, mint original lacquer, very sharp engraving. Very light flute like action, and a very pretty singing sound when my chops are up to task. You need chops for this horn.
The early gold mk6 has a pretty spongy mechanism. The low c# on the spatula was not perfected yet, and took me a long time to get used to. It has that flat spring down on the bottom, and I don't think that selmer had perfected it yet. I bought this horn around Christmas of '96 and left immediately for a tour of Japan without giging or even practising on the horn. The spongy action got me all discombobulated on my first job of the tour, a quintet gig with me and a trumpet player on the front line. So I stayed up all night practising very softly in my hotel room, scales and arpeggios, and the next night I was fiddlin'. This horn is a dream come true, and I'd be playing it now if it wern't for the ref.
The 210,xxx mk6 was my first Selmer alto, I sold my Buescher 400 to finance it's purchase. My next horn spoke a little better than this one and Charles Ponte gave me a good trade in price. So I traded it for the next horn.
The 226,xxx mk6, the next horn. This horn had a high f# key, and played much better than the 210 horn. The mechanism was just very sweet, speed was no problem, and it had a fat, pithy tone. I used to play this horn from early in the morning, 9:00am, to 2 or 3 the next morning. Day in and day out, for years. The pearls and the settings they were in were almost razor thin when I sold this horn in '03. I remember seeing lots and lots of play between the rods and the posts for the bell keys between a couple of overhauls. But I felt that the horn still was in the process of breaking in when I sold it. A lot of people knock Selmers, but I know how this horn held up during a phase in my life when I was totally obsessed with playing a saxophone. Those mk6's were built like tanks.
The Serie II that I had played a little stuffy. The tone didn't ring. It had a fat tone, and the action was pretty comfortable, but it was hard for me to sing on that horn. So it was sold.
The Reference is by far the finest alto I've owned, the finest saxophone I've owned. It does all things well for me. It sings well, is fat, it's piercing when I need it to be, has a big sonorous middle register, and it's got power that is lacking in the 6's. I thought that Selmer would never build an alto saxophone that could replace the mk6 for me, but I really like this ref that I'm playing.